The Coffin Dancer

heading two eight oh. Contact departure control.”
    “Two eight oh, Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo. Thank you, sir.”
    “Good evening.”
    Tugging the yoke a bit more, eleven degrees, twelve, fourteen . . . Leaving the power settings at takeoff level, higher than normal, for a few minutes. Hearing the sweet grind of the turbofans behind her, the slipstream.
    And in this sleek silver needle, Percey Clay felt herself flying into the heart of the sky, leaving behind the cumbersome, the heavy, the painful. Leaving behind Ed’s death and Brit’s, leaving behind even that terrible man, the devil, the Coffin Dancer. All of thehurt, all of the uncertainty, all of the ugliness were trapped far below her, and she was free. It seemed unfair that she should escape these stifling burdens so easily, but that was the fact of it. For the Percey Clay who sat in the left-hand seat of Lear N695FB was not Percey Clay the short girl with the squat face, or Percey Clay the girl whose only sex appeal was the lure of Daddy’s chopped-tobacco money. It wasn’t Per-ceee Pug, Percey the Mug, Percey the Troll, the awkward brunette struggling with the ill-fitting gloves at her cotillion, on the arm of her mortified cousin, surrounded by willowy blondes who nodded at her with pleasant smiles and stored up the sight for a gossip fest later.
    That wasn’t the real Percey Clay.
    This was.
    Another gasp from Roland Bell. He must have peeked through the window curtain during their alarming bank.
    “Mamaroneck departure, Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo with you out of two thousand.”
    “Evening, Five Foxtrot Bravo. Climb and maintain six thousand.”
    And then they began the mundane tasks of setting nav com for the VOR frequencies that would guide them to Chicago as straight as a samurai’s arrow.
    At six thousand feet they broke through the cloud cover into a sky that was as spectacular as any sunset Percey had ever seen. Not really an outdoor person, she never grew tired of the sight of beautiful skies. Percey allowed herself a single sentimental thought—thatit would have been a very good thing if Ed’s last sight had been as beautiful as this.
    At twenty-one thousand feet she said, “Your aircraft.”
    Brad responded, “Got it.”
    “Coffee?”
    “Love some.”
    She stepped into the back of the plane, poured three cups, took one to Brad, and then sat down next to Roland Bell, who took the cup in shaking hands.
    “How you doing?” she asked.
    “It’s not like I get airsick. It’s just I get”—his face folded—“well, nervous as a . . . ” There were probably a thousand good Tarheel similes to choose from, but for once his southern talk failed him. “Just nervous,” he concluded.
    “Take a look,” she said, pointing out the cockpit window.
    He eased forward in the seat and looked out the windshield. She watched his craggy face blossom in surprise as they stared into the maw of the sunset.
    Bell whistled. “Well, now. Lookit that . . . Say, that was a real rush, takeoff.”
    “She’s a sweet bird. You ever hear of Brooke Knapp?”
    “Don’t believe so.”
    “Businesswoman in California. Set an around-the-world speed record in a Lear thirty-five A—what we’re in right now. Took her a hair over fifty hours. I’m going to break that someday.”
    “I don’t doubt you are.” Calmer now. Eyes on the controls. “Looks awful complicated.”
    She sipped the coffee. “There’s a trick to flying we don’t tell people. Sort of a trade secret. It’s a lot simpler than you’d think.”
    “What’s that?” he asked eagerly. “The trick?”
    “Well, look outside. You see those colored lights on the wing tips?”
    He didn’t want to look, but he did. “Okay, got it.”
    “There’s one on the tail too.”
    “Uh-huh. Remember seeing that, I think.”
    “All we have to do is make sure we keep the plane in between those lights and everything’ll go fine.”
    “In between . . . ” It took a moment for the joke to register. He gazed at her deadpan face for a minute, then smiled. “You get a lotta people with that one?”
    “A few.”
    But the joke didn’t really amuse him. His eyes were still on the carpet. After a long moment of silence she said, “Brit Hale could’ve said no, Roland. He knew the risks.”
    “No, he didn’t,” Bell answered. “Nope. He went along with what we had in mind, not knowing much of anything. I should’ve thought better. I should’ve guessed about the fire trucks.